Chaos Magick:
Magickal
Terrorism

The practice of magick is
generally agreed to be the
attempt to create change in conformity with the will of the magician.
This change can range from a simple acquisition, such as creating
circumstances favorable to getting a job, to the highly metaphysical,
such as conversing with the angelic entities of the Elizabethan magus
John Dee. Chaos magick, the most recent development in the Ceremonial
Magickal Tradition, is an innovative, modern, and disturbing approach
to the realization of the Magickal Intention.

Chaos
Magick derives primarily from the work of Austin Osman Spare and Peter
Carroll in the first and third quarters of the 20th Century
respectively. Both magicians aggressively argued against the exclusion
of sorcerous techniques from magickal practice and both developed
systems of magick that were inclusive, eclectic and innovative. Both
generally spurned traditional magick as needlessly complicated,
discriminatory, and impotent. Spare, being an artist, was clearly
influenced by other magickal artists such as William Blake, and was
also influenced by the relatively new field of psychiatry, particularly
by the work of Jung and Freud on the subconscious. Spare stressed the
integration of magick into all areas of his life, and so it is not
possible, in examining Spare’s drawings, for example, to distinguish
between them and magickal work.

Spare’s
drawings are spells. Spare’s work is unfortunately mostly out of print.
Some of his writings are available online. Peter Carroll, writing soon
after the development of Chaos Scientific Theory, was equally
influenced by the possibilities of using the language and tools of
magick as a means to discover and influence the subatomic interactions
of the quantum universe. Carroll also founded the Illuminati of
Thanateros (the IOT), an Order of Chaos Magicians. The Order is
somewhat controversial in the greater community of Chaos magicians
since it is a secretive degreed hierarchy. Secrets, degrees, and
hierarchies are considered by many to run counter to the Chaos Current.
Carroll’s introductory work “Liber Null and Psychonaut” is the most
widely available work on Chaos Magick. It remains in print. More
recently the ideas of Chaos Magick have been extended further into art
by Jan Fries, whose brilliant and friendly excursion into drawing,
“Visual Magick”, is, difficult to find, but available. Stephen Mace has
privately printed fascinating analyses of the interface between
demonology and Chaos Magick, “Stealing the Fire from Heaven” being the
most widely read. Phil Hine first published pamphlets on Chaos Magick
and now has a series of servicable books on the topic. Finally, Hakim
Bey has applied Chaos Magick to social dynamics and communications
media theory, extending it to include music, performance
art, and the Internet.

In
more general terms Chaos Magick uses the deconstructionist theories of
Jacques Derrida, the interest in random phenomena of John Cage and
Minimalism, and the humor of Dada to create ritual spaces for magickal
acts. To view Chaos Magick solely as a reformulation of traditional
magick, however, would be inaccurate. Chaos Magick is something new, an
attempt to deconstruct consensual belief structures, free the energy
trapped by these beliefs, and radically alter the movement of the
quantum flux. Chaos Magick is an assault on normative belief patterns,
an attack on the mind’s status quo, guerrilla war on the careful
considerations of consciousness.

Chaos
Magick focuses on the mechanism of belief, and suggests that the
process of belief rather than the object of belief is the critical
element in magick. Chaos Magicians will cheerfully adopt or refute
positions of belief as needed for the successful resolution of magickal
acts. This orientation, which stresses adaptability as a prime asset
and greets change as an accurate reflection of the true nature of
reality, can be unnerving for individuals whose sense of personal
identity requires that the universe be perceived as an ordered and
meaningful place. Chaos Magick specifically refutes the possibility of
eternal rest, or eternal order. It views the universe as a phenomena of
complexity at an order of magnitude too great for normal human
psychology to understand. In fact, Chaos Magicians would argue that the
universe is in such a state of flux and apparently random movement that
only devious techniques such as those of Chaos Magick, which
deliberately subvert the conscious, rational mind have any chance of
creating change in conformity with the will of the magician.

Chaos
Magick is self-annihilating, bearing commonality with the crazy wisdom
of the fringe elements of the Nyingmapa school of Tibetan Buddhism,
with the mad monks of Zen Buddhism, and with the theoretical structures
of Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka schools of Buddhism. One of the two
central Sutras (Buddhist teachings) of Madhyamaka is the Prajna
Paramita, a Sutra whose title is loosely translated as

“ Beyond thebeyond, there lies awakening”.

The
structure of this sutra, in which form and emptiness (Order and Chaos)
are identified with one another and both found to be empty of real
content, that is empty of a seperate self, resembles that of
contemporary chaos ritual. The founder of the Nyingmapa school of
Tibetan Buddhism was the sorcerer-buddha Padmasambhava, and some of the
rituals, such as the graveyard Chod practice, are hardly
distinguishable from the Chaos magician’s use of the Eldar Gods of the
Necronomicon. The koans of Zen Buddhism are designed to short circuit
the discursive mind and bring about a state of mind similar to that
sought by the Chaos Magician.

Chaos
Magick can be considered to be a psychological approach to magickal
ritual. Bearing many similarities to the Stanislavsky system of Method
Acting,the ritual systems of Chaos Magick aim at blocking the conscious
mind and generating a state of consciousness known as “gnosis”, a state
of mind in which the defenses of the discursive mind are overthrown and
the magickal intention of the magician can be driven deep into the
Absolute, that is to say into the quantum flux of the universe. Like
Method Actors, Chaos Magicians seek to forget their identity in order
to achieve their will, the change in the universe that is the goal of
the magickal act. To do this Chaos Magicians use gesture, ritual,
sound, visualization, the cues of their senses, meditation,and
generated emotional states such as anger, fear, disgust, boredom or
despair. Any method that can create the momentary state of gnosis is
considered acceptable. Favorite techniques frequently involve sex,
pain, and confusion. Chaos Magicians use sigils (magickal intentions
that have been transformed into symbolic structures), rituals from any
source and the artefacts of esoteric or popular culture to form a
magickal space that might bring about gnosis.. Chaos Magick is
non-discriminatory and refutes dualism. Rooted in the realization of
the quantum flux and recognizing that ideas are not reality (although
they may influence the perception of reality) Chaos Magick does not
discriminate between White, Grey and Black Magick, between evil and
good, between right and wrong. Consequently Chaos Magick is probably
not for those who have not internalized a personal moral or ethical
code. In fact, most Chaos Magicians would probably define themselves,
if pressed, as Black Magicians but may, in this self-definition, be
referring to Magick that has to do with that which is hidden, or in
darkness, and so is black. Chaos Magick is not for the squeamish, nor
for those who wish to argue points of ethics, nor for those obsessed
with establishing varieties of social order. Ceremonial Magick and
Wicca provide ample opportunities for those who wish to do the latter.
Chaos Magick is concerned with developing magick that works, rituals
that have specific effects, that create change in conformity with the
will of the chaos magician, that are testable and can be replicated,
that affect the Chaos Magician’s deep self in sometimes catastrophic
ways, that are non-judgmental, non-hierarchical and devious.

Those
who are interested in the practice of Chaos Magick are warned that
Chaos Magick can be, well, chaotic. Sinceit is designed to deconstruct
belief , dearly held opinions, the stories we tell ourselves to lull
ourselves into a sense of security will tend to fray and unravel.
Unless the magician is willing to forsake these old ideas, to allow the
boundaries of personal identity to be disrupted the result of magickal
action may be chaotic indeed. Dramatic life changes, sometimes
perceived as being for the worse, are a commonly reported result of
Chaos Magickal Rites. Fundamentally, Chaos Magick is
not about
discovering one’s True Will, nor communing with the Mother Goddess, nor
even associating with demons, but with the direct, startling
apprehension of the Chaos current, the quantum flux of an unhuman
universe. Chaos Magick is magickal terrorism.